Posted on 02/25/2009 8:09:40 PM PST by presidio9
After President Obama's speech on the economy last night, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal criticized government spending in the stimulus bill, citing examples including "$140 million for something called 'volcano monitoring.'"
The $140 million to which Jindal referred is actually for a number of projects conducted by the United States Geological Survey, including volcano monitoring. This monitoring is aimed at helping geologists understand the inner workings of volcanoes as well as providing warnings of impending eruptions, in the United States and in active areas around the world where U.S. military bases are located.
Most of the money from the stimulus bill earmarked for monitoring (only about a tenth of the total going to the USGS) will go to modernizing existing monitoring equipment, including switching from analog to digital and installing GPS networks that can measure ground movements, said John Eichelberger, program coordinator for the USGS's Volcano Hazards Program. Much of the expense of this technology comes from the manpower required to make and install it, he added.
"Ultimately most of this creates jobs or saves jobs that would have been lost" to recent budget shortfalls Eichelberger told LiveScience.
When he heard Jindal's remarks, Eichelberger said he "was frankly astonished" that the governor would use this particular example, given his own state's recent brush with a catastrophic natural disaster.
Among the scenarios in which the USGS's monitoring can assist - the catastrophic eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, which killed 57 people (including a geologist monitoring the mountain) and was the deadliest and costliest volcanic eruption in U.S. history ($2.74 billion in 2007 dollars). This event was preceded by thousands of
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Today we know them as Motorcycles with a Side Car.
The question concerns an item that TODAY's definition would fit.
Which means I am not wrong, the LC is not wrong and Wiki is not wrong.
However, the first "production cars", meaning you could get one after another of the same thing, were not produced that way. It was more like "just in time" production which we currently attribute (wrongly I believe) to the Japanese.
That's why I asked if anyone had found any reference to where Elwood Haynes had bought his gasoline engine for his first "model". I'm thinking it may have been bought from a factory in Indianapolis ~ Marmon-Harrington perhaps?
Nobody monitors Webb. He’s off on his own.
I don't give this bunch of lightweights even 6 months before a coupe ~ or maybe an invasion from Canada to put a stop to the nonsense.
"Pegging" is simply short-hand for "what symbol should we use", and that's done so that folks don't have to haul out their calculators to make conversions everytime they want to know a price in a convenient form.
At the house I grew up in, I could see the brewery. Now it is a Tully’s coffee roasting plant.
Please read the small print which has been at the top of my home page for the past ten years.
I do realize that. That's why I say give all the money to the military and let them employ the scientists. As far as New Yorkers are concerned however, I'd rather see stimulus money going to SETI than vulcanologists. Any jackass that's ever seen a science fiction movie knows that alien attack (and possibly even Godzilla) poses a far more credible threat to loss of American life and property values than volcanos. Hell, I'm more concerned about "Global Warming" than volcano eruptions.
Listen, our brothers and sisters in Alaska, Washington, and Hawaii choose to build their cities on volcanos that’s their business, and I promise not to say “I told you so.” However, because there’s nothing humans can do when a volcano erupts, I fail to see how their stupidity becomes everybody else’s problem. Besides, were’re running out of space here on Manhattan, and Lando Calrissian and I could use the extra money to help us get Cloud City off the ground. We promise not to go hat in hand to the Federal Goverment if things don’t work out so good.
In other words, I have no money and no sympathy for people who choose to live on volcanos. I could probably find a sweet ginormous loft for under $1200 a month in Bedford Stuyvesant, but then who would I blame when I mugged every night coming home from work?
Maybe next week.
I'll probably have 50 typos between now and then, and they'll all be just as relevant.
I don't pay any attention to thypos unless a poster draws attention to them by putting them in quotes.
Maybe I'll wait two weeks.
I agree. How about stopping living were there are hurricanes. Lets stop monitoring them too.
What the heck is a thypo? I surrender.
I love typos and along with Dr. Zoo from the Institute of Phenomonology have cured many people of agonizing over them. (Back in the FireTalk dayz of FR)
Just going for them (gophering them?) is much better.
Have a grate evening, I'm headed to Sacto to throw some tea on Present Obama's overtax Bills tomorrow.
“It stimulates the economy. Question is, in what way?
It doesn’t generate capital.”
If it fails to do that it is not a stimulus. The only true stimulus are those things that help generate capital, savings and investment. The Reisman article posted on FR yesterday has a good Austrian-school take on why this is the way out of recessions (because recessions are due to collapse in available savings ... its another way of looking at the ‘credit crunch’).
“It saves some jobs that were to be cut from spending cuts. It generates product demand, which creates the need for labor and other suppliers. It “borrows” that from the overall economy and the future.”
Correct, and the Keynesian error is to not subtract that ‘rational expectations loss’ of that borrowing from the gain you get. You do that, and the net benefit is ZERO. Actually negative, since you retard about $2 in economic activity for each $1 you raise in taxes, when you have rates at 35% or higher. The only way to get better than ZERO is if the govt project is SO VALUABLE to society, it beats out keeping the money in private sector hands and the costs in taxes and borrowing on the economy. (A threshold that Govt rarely meets, which is why 80-90% of Govt spending hurts the economy.)
“Although the main reason for doing it should be that it’s worthy, that doesn’t mean it has no effect on stimulating part of the economy with corresponding dampening elsewhere.”
Yes to the ‘dampening elsewhere’. The net effect is ZERO on the economic activity, which to normal people would mean ‘not a stimulus’. Hence, the ONLY real reason to justify this or any govt spending is that the expense is ‘worthy’ enough to displace priavte sector spending. The stupidest Keynesian idea is the idea that paying people to do something is a useful end in itself. Its not. Only the creation of wealth is useful. Economic activity that doesnt create true wealth is a waste of economic resources and thus causes poverty. Bubble economies have their type of waste - mal-investment. And socialist economies have a different kind of waste - govt spending on non-wealth creation.
Obama just sent up a $3.5 trillion budget. If you are Keynesian, you think this will make the economy boom. If you are a realist, you will have the same reaction asthe stock market: Doom and gloom over his attack on wealth-creation and prosperity by diverting valuable savings and wealth into non-wealth-creating govt spending sprees.
There are a lot of reasons to locate a city around Puget Sound (resources, trade, etc.) The danger of lahars from Rainier was only identified recently. Here's a map (Burien should be OK):
Here's why they think that:
Personally, I'd move Orting to higher ground.
And here's a picture of why there's reason to worry: (Armero, Colombia, after the lahar from Nevada Huascaran)
But, but, but, I work in Auburn!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I agree. How about stopping living were there are hurricanes. Lets stop monitoring them too.
Tornados, earthquakes, floods etc etc.
They're all going to happen anyhow.
They should be funded with regular budget items.
Jindal is hopeless though,
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